Soul Guardian

Chapter 10: Joyride

The SUV waited for its owners in the no-parking zone. Before then it had never experienced boredom, or anything else for that matter. It had just sat in the dealer’s lot except for the occasional test drive.

Just as the doldrums were fully setting in, Murphy got a visitor, a fat balding man with a golden badge. He tapped on Murphy’s windshield and tried to peek inside. Murphy considered leaving but Maharet had told him to stay put. The fat man made a call on his radio then walked off leaving Murphy all alone again.

I’m so bored. Murphy thought to himself. Bored, bored, bored.

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Inside the mall Bael wasn’t faring any better. Maharet was playing dress up with her new husband, much to his dismay. Apparently there were rules to be followed when it came to fashion and it didn’t help that Bael was almost seven feet tall and built like a beanpole with a sack of hay hanging around the middle.

“Face it, human clothing just isn’t meant for demons.” Bael said. “I very much doubt…” He looked at the tag. “Hugo Boss was considering hooves and a tail when he designed these slacks.” Bael looked at that tag again… why did he know that name?

“Well maybe you should find a more suitable form for the duration of our visit.” Maharet suggested, “Unless of course you don’t care about how you look.”

With a sigh Bael muttered an incantation under his breath. Hooves flowed into normal human feet, horns disappeared and his tail curled up and vanished with a sound like a tape measure retracting. “There, you happy?” He asked.

“It’ll do.” Maharet said.

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Sitting on the bench outside the women’s clothing store Bael kept watch on what he had been informed were “his” purchases. He found himself wondering if the bags were his, then why did he have no say in what had gone into them? Maharet had vetoed everything he liked and apparently her veto carried more weight than his.

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To pass the time he made a wedding ring for himself and held it up to the light for inspection. It was a plain affair, a gold band set with a single small diamond. He found himself idly twirling it with his right thumb and forefinger. An old man in a similar predicament looked over and cracked a smile.

“You must be a newlywed.” The old man said. “I remember when I first got married, I was so darn proud of the ring but it itched on my finger. I used to twiddle with it just like you’re doing now. How long have you been married?”

“Not very long.” Bael admitted. “But we’ve known each other almost forever.”

“It’s different when you’re married.” The old man assured him. “I’ve been married to my Bonnie for almost fifty years now. We got together right after the war, settled down and had some kids. Probably the best decision I ever made was giving that woman my last name.” He looked off into the middle distance, no doubt remembering things better left forgotten.

Bael remembered that war, as well as the one before it. There was always work for demons to do in the wartime. A brief flashback to the killing fields of heaven came to him out of nowhere. The demons had charged at the pearly gates with nothing but edged weapons while divine artillery had chewed them to shreds. Those that had been lucky, or unlucky, enough to reach the gates themselves had been vaporized on contact.

“You’re lucky.” Bael said. “When I got back from the war all I had was work to keep my mind off of what happened.” And even that had barely kept him going. Perhaps that was why he had done everything in his power to distance himself from his former occupation. After all, a paper pusher was a far cry from hell’s infantry.

“Where did they send you, Son?” The old man asked with concern in his voice.

“Somewhere I’d rather not mention.” Bael finally said. “Long story short, we fought and we lost.”

The old man nodded, his son had come back from Vietnam feeling the same way. But at least he had come back. “That’s a shame, but you seem to be doing alright now.”

“I do alright.” Bael admitted, wondering why he was opening up to a total stranger. “But I can’t shake the feeling that I was supposed to do something more with my life.”

“We call that a midlife crisis. Every man has one. Tell me, did you make any big life changes recently or maybe buy a new car?”

Bael hesitated. “If I did. Would this mean I was going through this ‘mid life crisis’ of which you speak? Are they really that common?”

The old man laughed. “I remember when I turned forty I bought myself a Harley Davidson softail, almost killed myself a dozen times before Bonnie made me give it up. I still miss that bike but she was right. I couldn’t go leaving my children fatherless.” The old man closed his eyes, remembering the feel of the open road and the wind through his hair. Back when he had hair. “Still miss that bike though.” He said wistfully.

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Bael could sympathize. “My wife said I have to… get into shape. She said my clothes didn’t fit right and I had to make a change.” He still felt strange walking around without a tail. Shoes were also something he was just getting used to.

“They do it because they love us.” The old man assured him with a laugh. “Still, are you financially secure?” When Bael gave him a blank look the man elaborated. “Do you make much money? It makes it a lot easier to have a happy marriage when you don’t have to worry about money.”

The wealth demon let out a laugh of his own. “Let's just say that making money is one thing I’ve never had to worry about.”

“Good, because I think your wife just went into the perfume shop.” The old man said with a cackle.

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Back outside a tow truck driver was sizing up the SUV, little did he know that Murphy was sizing him up right back. Murphy had never seen a tow truck before but something hardwired inside of him distrusted it.

(Humans had a similarly ingrained reaction to dentists. Unless they were in blinding pain most people needed to be dragged by the heels or guilt tripped into going.)

I could tow that, the driver thought. It would be easy money.

He’d better not try and tow me, Murphy thought right back. If he does I’ll make him work for his money.

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Their last stop was at the bookstore. Maharet wanted to pick up some books on parenting and Bael had his mind set on a nice juicy grimoire. Unfortunately, the closest thing Cornerstones had to a book of spells was Lord of the Rings.

“Do you have any books on Thaumaturgy?” Bael asked the clerk. “I’d settle for something mild like Totalih Maydup’s History of Magic or even My First Necronomicon. It’s for my daughter.” He explained when he saw the judgmental look the clerk was giving him. No doubt the request must have seemed silly, a grown adult asking for such childish volumes. But Six had to start somewhere. The book of Summoning she had been learning from was powerful, but painfully narrow when it came to subject matter.

(It would have been an error to call it one dimensional. Especially within earshot of the book itself. Grimoires were notoriously touchy and had ways of showing their displeasure. Ordinary books did as well, as any sufficiently neglected book had the tendency to disappear never to be seen again. Only old favorites seemed to be immune from the phenomenon, they knew they held a special place in their owners' hearts and thus tended to stick around.)

In the end Bael had to content himself with a history of metalworking through the ages, a picture book of motorcycles and a couple of cookbooks. Though he did wonder why one of them had a picture of a scantily clad woman on the front he put it up to artistic license. After all, if women could ‘’eat in” he assumed that men could as well. Besides, he didn’t think it was fair that Maharet had a monopoly on the kitchen, he wanted to learn too.

When he was checking out the cashier gave him a big smile. “It’s nice to see people buying books.” She said. “Nowadays people are too busy watching TV. Most of my customers only ever come in if there’s a new best seller. Now they’re putting books on the computer, before you know it places like this will be out of business, It’s a shame really.”

Bael shook his head. “That’ll never happen. Books are special.”

“Nobody else seems to think so.” The woman said sadly. The woman grabbed one of the cookbooks and let out a giggle before bagging it with the rest. “You must be a newlywed.”

Bael felt himself turning red with embarrassment. Why did everyone keep asking him that?

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In all his years working as mall security Nathan Wrinkles had seen hundreds of vehicles being towed, but before today he had never seen a vehicle tow back. The tow truck was being hauled backwards and at great speed by the SUV known as Murphy. The driver was shouting in panic and waving from his window for help. His tires had long since burned away to nothing and sparks were shooting from the bare rims. Murphy seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Oh look, Murphy made a friend while we were shopping.” Bael observed. “I worried that he might get up to some trouble while we were gone.” He put two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle.

Like a dog being called from the park Murphy reluctantly shook off the tow truck and went to pick up its owners. Bael patted the SUV’s hood affectionately. “Did you have a good time playing with the truck?”

Murphy revved his engine which so far as Bael could guess qualified as a yes. Far on the other side of the parking lot the driver had crawled out of the tow truck and was apparently rejoicing from his newly found love of solid ground.

Nathan the security guard watched the couple loading bags into the SUV and weighed his options, filing a mountain of paperwork where he had to explain how a driverless SUV had taken a tow truck twice its size for a ride… or ignore the whole thing and pretend nothing had happened. One of those would surely involve HR and a drug test.

Paperwork or no, he still had his own curiosity to satisfy. Cautiously he walked over to the couple, making sure to keep them between himself and the vehicle. “That sure is a nice car you two have there.” He said. “What kind of engine do you have under the hood?”

“I’m told it runs on gasoline.” Bael informed him, he lowered his voice and gave the mall cop a conspiratorial wink. “But I may have souped it up a bit.”

“I’ll bet! What did you put in there? A hemi or some kind of supercharger?” Nathan asked. He had been into cars when he was younger and the fascination had never really gone away, it had only temporarily gone into remission. “Don’t tell me you put in both.” He said, wonder in his eyes. “That would be absolutely insane. You’d have more horsepower than you knew what to do with.”

Bael shrugged and got into the SUV with nothing more than a polite wave. It wasn’t until they were long gone that Nathan realized that Bael had gotten into the back seat.

Poor guy, Nathan thought, he spent all of his time and money souping the thing up and his wife wouldn’t even let him drive it.